It was eight years ago, almost to the day, when I wrote my first blog on building a secure web server using the LAMP stack with CentOS 5. I have since updated it in 2015 and again in 2017 for CentOS 7. But almost decade later and are we still hosting WordPress sites on LAMP web servers. Sure we can harden the web server but there are so many components to think about. Apache, MySQL / MariaDB, PHP, IPTABLES, SELINUX, SSH for admin access and file transfer, then the ultimate attack vector. WordPress itself.

I’ve been using Microsoft Visio for a very long time, and it’s still my tool of choice when creating architecture diagrams. Since PowerPoint on the Mac has been massively improved I do use that more often, but you can’t beat Visio for the more detailed diagrams. With that, it has been almost 3 years since I shared my last EUC Visio stencil set so I decided it’s time for an update for 2018. I do intend to add a lot more shapes to this set as I create them. Many of these are from existing Visio Stencils available online (see links below), whereas others are ones I’ve collected over the years or had to create myself. You can see all of the shapes and icons included in this Visio Stencil Set in the image above.

Earlier this month (January 2018) VMware released Horizon 7.4, and with that I wanted to share some updates in regard to the network port requirements. My good colleagues over in the EUC Technical Marketing team are doing a fine job of maintaining the diagram and have recently published a white paper PDF which you’ll find here. It’s a beast of a document and highly recommended if you are deploying a VMware Horizon architecture in your environment.

After writing a series of blog posts and guides on CentOS for several years now, as part of my Essential Linux Skills with CentOS 7 series, I have decided to publish a free eBook covering the complete guide on setting up your own highly secure web server for blogging (WordPress). Linux is still a hobby, and while it comes in handy for my day job, it has been long since I was a Linux administrator. I once remember someone describing it as an art.

We’re 18 days away from another VMworld in Las Vegas, and it’s going to be another amazing year, with a packed agenda crammed with sessions on our SDDC stack, including vSAN, NSX and vSphere, in addition to VMware on AWS and Cloud Foundation, all being my favorite topics at the moment. You’ll also find me discussing Cross-Cloud Architecture along with Adrian Roberts and Victor Sandoval, in the Ask the vCloud Air Network Cloud Experts [LHC1566PU] session which is on Monday at 12.30 so feel free to bring something to eat and drink for an hour of technical discussion!

Ray works for Amazon Web Services helping build secure, resilient and scalable clouds with enterprise customers. Ray has over 21 years in the industry and is a former Principal Architect at VMware (Office of the CTO). Awarded vExpert 2011-2018 including vExpert-Cloud. Double VCDX certification holder and panelist #122 (Desktop and Data Center Virtualization)